An obsolete or rare historical term for inflammation of the liver; a very old-fashioned way of referring to what we now call hepatitis.
From hepat- (liver) + -ite (inflammation or disease, from Greek -itis). This term was used in older medical texts before the standardized suffix -itis became universal for inflammatory conditions.
Medical terminology constantly evolves, and 'hepatite' is like finding a dinosaur in medical language—it shows how we've settled on 'hepatitis' as the standard term, though the suffix -ite occasionally appears in older texts as a reminder of medical history.
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